Lessons Learned:
Travelling for Christmas has been quite a learning experience for me. Two valuable tips have been burned into my mind, no doubt for the better:
1) Always check copies of keys to see if they actually work. Backstory: the original plan was to have my friend Louise tend to Quarkie’s gastronomical and emotional needs while I am away. Now Louise’s plan was to drop in on Friday night, feed Quark a bit, and then spend Christmas weekend with her family, resuming Quark-sitting duties on Tuesday. Anticipating three days without direct supervision, I had prepared a vat of kibble for Quark. Since he had been very bad last weekend and, among other things, gotten into a good portion of my bacon (! those of you who have been following this blog and have seen pictures of the creature, know that he needs no bacon), I took the extra measure of cat-proofing the kibble vat so that he wouldn’t simply devour all of it as soon as I’d laid it out (ostensibly he’d wait until Louise uncovered the vat and then immediately devour the kibble). Now Louise would not get off work until after I had departed for Wichita, so I’d made an extra copy of my apartment key and given it to her.
The critical flaw in my plan being, of course, that I had neglected to test the key. Friday night I got a phone call from Louise: “hey, did you test this thing before you gave it to me?” No! “Well, the key doesn’t even fit and your cat’s meowing.” Ahh! Panicked, we decided that I would call the apartment management the next day and explain my situation. So the following day, I left about ten messages each on the voice mail for the normal management number and the emergency maintenance line, to no avail. Super-panicked, I decided to overnight-mail my apartment key to Louise, hoping in the meantime that my cat would not have eaten himself in fear and desperation.
Sunday came along, and still no call back from either the management or maintenance (I understand that it’s a holiday weekend, most of the residents have gone elsewhere for Christmas and the management staff doesn’t have much reason to stick around, but isn’t the 24-hr emergency maintenance thing kind of a little bit of a big deal? What if a pipe burst or something?). Extra-super-panicked, we call my friend Melinda, who is still around town and who could pick up the key. Yay! At this point I definitely owed both Louise and Melinda some fancy dinners.
Melinda goes to pick up the key, which was sent to Louise’s other job (a retail store where she works occasionally on the weekends, is usually open and therefore a safer destination for a package than Louise’s doorstep). When she gets there, the girl working there explains that the package actually arrived Saturday night, while the store was still open – but, for some reason, the delivery person didn’t actually bother to go in the store, instead leaving a note: “Sorry we missed you! Package is at post office.” So the girl on staff actually walked to the post office, which was a couple blocks away, to pick up the package, making a total of three people whom I owe fancy dinners and drinks now! Melinda was able to get into my apartment and reported that Quarkie is doing just fine; the bugger had angrily headbutted his way through the catproofing and eaten every last pebble of the forbidden kibble. I guess the little furbag is a little smarter than I give him credit for, at least in desperate times. Meanwhile, Louise and I marvelled at just how many people it took to make Christmas this year a happy one for my poor kitty.
And all because I failed to check that key! Never again.
Sublesson: My apartment 24-hour emergency maintenance hotline is apparently fictional! What’s that, there’s a dangerous gas leak? Oh ho ho, Merry Christmas, our gift to you is ignoring your emergency concerns!
2) Always double-check gate information at the airport. In my defense, my brain was a little rattled for fear for Quarkie and various other issues. I was told when I checked in at the Wichita airport that I would have a mere 20 minutes to make my connecting flight in Atlanta. “You might make it, so we went ahead and gave you the boarding pass for that flight,” said the attendant; “here’s your itinerary, which has the flight number and the gate where it should arrive.” Outwardly I groaned, but inwardly, I kind of relished the challenge. Could I make it through a huge, busy airport in under twenty minutes? I decided to try, and this time the critical flaw in my little scheme was to assume that the gate information I’d been given was correct. (It occurs to me now: how in the world are they able to make a guess at which gate a plane will land? Do they just pick a random gate and put it down, to assure people that the plane will indeed land somewhere?)
As soon as the plane landed, I made a beeline for the gate counter, asked “where’s E18?” and, when given vague directions towards the train, ran for it. Making it with time to spare, my relief rapidly dissolved into bewilderment: “Lithuania? But, I’m going to Baltimore!” Turned right back around and ran to find the information counter, where the bored lady in the stiff-bowed uniform informed me that I was in the wrong concourse entirely, and oh yeah, “they’re boarding right now.” Ahh! My expectations that I would make this flight were rapidly dimming, but just for shits and giggles, I decided to try anyways – hopping back on the train and nearly losing my arm again, running like an idiot amidst all the people who were strolling casually (why was nobody in a hurry in this airport? Probably because they had more than twenty minutes to get to where they needed to be), and – wonder of wonders – made it just in time, the door closing behind me and me safely buckled in my exit-row-seat, panting and heart-beating loudly enough to cause the people around me to stare. So maybe I made a little bit of a scene, but whatever. I made it!
On my run I observed several things: firstly, you know those conveyer belt things that most airports have? The ones I assumed people took because they are too lazy to walk? Yeah, the Atlanta airport doesn’t have any of those, and it turns out that they would be pretty useful to people who have to deal with long hallways and twenty minutes to catch a connecting flight. Secondly, as mentioned, the Atlanta airport has long hallways. They also curve for no apparent reason, other than to look sort of cool, and obstruct one’s frantic passage through the airport. Thirdly, the general escalator rule of “stand on the right, walk / run-like-a-terrified-rabbit on the left” is not in observance anywhere at the Atlanta airport. Fourthly, you know how most airports have handy dandy television screens that tell you information about arrivals, departures, and gates? Most of those are turned off, yes, on one of the busiest flying days of the year. Thanks!
Sublesson: Never book a short connection in Atlanta!
Otherwise, my travels actually went smoothly enough; no unduly bumpy flights or colicky babies. I did sit next to a ten-year-old girl on my first flight here, who was travelling alone; we got to talking about families. Kaitlyn was precocious and sweet and a little bit spoiled, but I felt rather badly for her – she explained that she had two dads, and she was enroute to visiting one of them. “My other dad actually raised me, but then I found out last year that he isn’t my real dad!” Oh? “Yeah, I like visiting my other dad and relatives, because I hate staying at home where my mom and my biological dad yell and scream at each other the time.” 
Otherwise she seemed fairly upbeat, and showed off the various presents she’d received already. “I’m half-Jewish, so I get Hanukkah presents too! I got this, and this and this for Hanukkah shopping. This I got from Christmas shopping.” Hehe. I interrupted a bit of last-minute sock knitting to play a bit of Go Fish with her, but though my brother-in-law’s present is a bit late, it was worth it to keep the girl company for a brief while.
Conclusion: Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Convivial Kwanzaa, Frolicsome Festivus, what have you! Hopefully your holidays have not been so instructive as mine or worse. See you all next year!
